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In 1945 a German immigrant discovered clay figurines
buried at the foot of
The priceless collection has been tested by many scientists and are estimated to be at least 2500 years old. Modern knowledge of dinosaurs has been accumulated in just the past 200 years. How then, could this ancient people have crafted such incredible and accurate figurines of dinosaurs thought by many scientists to have been extinct for the past 65 million years?
Did men and dinosaurs live at the same time? Is
the evolutionary time table totally wrong? You be the judge as you look
at the pictures and read the actual reports of two scientists that went to
The
Dinosaurs Of Acambaro
Initial report
by Dr Dennis Swift Ph.D.
Waldemar Juisrud, a German hardware merchant in
Waldemar dismounted and dug out of the ground the hewn stones as well as a few ceramic pieces. Juisrud, who was archaeologically astute, immediately realized that these ceramic pieces were unlike anything that he had seen. He was familiar with Tarascan, Aztec, Toltec, Mayan, Chupicauro, Inca and pre-Incan Indian civilizations. The objects he held in his hand were distinctively different than any other known Indian culture.
Waldemar in 1923 was co-discoverer with Padre Fray Jose
Marie Martinez of the Chupicauro culture at a site just eight miles away. When
a few ceramic fragments were found at Chupicauro, Julsrud hired diggers to
excavate. This discovery brought world wide attention from archaeologists who
at first mistakenly defined them as Tarascan, but later they were correctly
identified as a whole New Indian culture -the Chupicauro. The Chupicauro
civilization flourished from about 500 BC to 500 AD, roughly a thousand years
before the Tarascan.
Julsrud at age sixty-nine was on the brink of making a
discovery that may prove to be the greatest archaeological discovery ever made.
Waldemar hired a Mexican farmer, Odilon Tinajero, to dig in the area where the
ceramic figurines were found and bring him any other similar objects. Soon
Tinajero had a wheelbarrow full of ceramic pottery that had been excavated on
Charles Hapgood notes that "Julsrud was a shrewd
businessman and he now made a deal with Tinajero that is very important for our
story. He told Tinajero that he would pay him one peso (worth about 12 cents)
for each complete piece he brought in."1
Tinajero was very careful with the excavation process so as not to break the pieces, and the broken ones were cemented together before being brought to Julsrud.
Among the thousands of artifacts excavated were items that turned Julsrud's mansion into "the museum that scared scientists." Sculpted in various colors of clay were figurines of dinosaurs, various races of people Eskimos, Asians, Africans, bearded Caucasians, Mongols, Polynesians, and objects that had cultural connections with the Egyptians, Sumerians as well as others.
The objects were made of clay and stone varying in size from a few inches long to statues three feet high and dinosaur objects four to five feet long. In the collection, that now numbered over 20,000 not one object could be found to be a duplicate another. Each of the clay pieces had been individually made, without molds, skillfully sculptured, and carefully decorated. In its collection of unequaled size, dinosaur figures numbering several hundred were scientifically identified as representing many species of dinosaurs. Dinosaurs including duck billed Trachodon, Gorgosaurus, horned Monoclonius, Ornitholestes, Titanosaurus, Triceratops, Stegosaurus Paleococincus, Diplodicus, Podokosaurus, Struthiomimos, Plesiosaur, Leviathan, Maiasaura, Rhamphorynchus, Iguanodon, Brachiosaurus, Pteranodon, Dimetrodon, Ichtyornis, Tyrannosaurus Rex, Rhynococephalia and other unknown or yet unidentified Dinosaur species.
These fantastic dinosaur figurines threaten the
orthodox concepts and time scales in many fields of studies. Dr. Ivan T.
Sanderson was amazed in 1955 to find that there was an accurate representation
of its American dinosaur Brachiosaurus almost totally unknown at that time to
the general public. Sanderson wrote about this particular Dinosaur in the
Julsrud collection. "This figurine is a very fine, jet-black,
polished-looking ware. It is about a foot tall. The point is it is an absolutely
perfect representation of Brachiosaurus, known only from
In the 1940s and 1950s as the Julsrud collection was
amassing, the state of
In 1999 Dr. Dennis Swift and Dr. Don R. Patton journeyed to Acambaro about 180 miles North of Mexico City to explore its mystery personally. Soon after our arrival in Acambaro it was revealed that the Julsrud collection was locked up in storage and not available to the public. After a couple of days of negotiating with the Mayor, Secretary of Tourism and Director of the Acambaro museum permission was given to view a portion of the collection. The storage area was ceremonially unlocked by the mayor; dim light filtered through the shadows as we peered into the dusty rooms and boxes were piled to the ceilings with artifacts wrapped in newspaper and haphazardly placed in crumbling cardboard containers.
The conference room adjoining the Mayor's office was eventually offered to view the artifacts as two Mexican policemen stood guard watching us armed with AK 47 rifles and pistols. City employees scurried back and forth bringing boxes upstairs as Dr. Swift unwrapped ceramic figurines while Dr. Patton professionally photographed them.
The collection at its largest numbered 33,500 figurines including musical instruments, masks, idols, tools, utensils, statues, human faces of many different nationalities and dinosaurs. The figurines eventually took over the twelve room Julsrud mansion crammed into every corner and lining the floor until Julsrud had to sleep in the bathtub for that was the only place left.
Working at a fast pace, in a six hour period, a little more than eight hundred of the ceramic figurines were unwrapped. Fourteen boxes had been opened and emptied of their contents onto the conference table. Among the items were about seventy-five exquisite dinosaur pieces.
There was an absolutely astonishing breathless moment as one object was unwrapped and there before us a virtually perfect representation of an Iguanodon. This was one of the first dinosaur skeletons discovered. The early concept of it's appearance was almost comical in the mid 1800's. By the turn of the century it had improved considerably but fell far short of what we now know. The figurine exhibits knowledge we have gained only in the last few years. No hoaxer could have made this model in the 1940's.
The authors became overnight celebrities in Acambaro
being interviewed on radio and TV stations in
Dr, Swift accidentally touched off a national scandal as he inquired, "How many boxes do you have in storage?" I was told there are sixty-four and then I muttered to myself, "There were once 33,500 figurines and here there can only be 5,000 to 6,000 at most left." A newspaper reporter overheard the comment and the next week the authors again became front-page news as an investigation was launched into the whereabouts of the artifacts.
Julsrud also stirred up controversy over the collection but its gathering storm on the horizon of history took several years before releasing its full fury on the scientific community. Unconfined by academic restraints or burdened by preconceived ideas, he began to speculate as thousands of figurines were unearthed all baked by the open fire method. The most startling sensational feature of the collection was dinosaurs and humans in close relationship to one another. Waldemar pondered the very real possibility that these artifacts came from a culture much older than the Olmecs, Mayans or Chupicauro.
The collection contained evidence of a culture of vast antiquity. The objects pointed to a woodland setting and that the Acambaro area was once a heavily forested area instead of a dry valley as it is today. Geologists have found that the valley was once filled by a large lake, until about five or six thousand years ago. The site of the caches of ceramic pottery objects was once the beach of the lake. Originally the objects were buried in sand. The fauna, plants, trees, flowers represented the art of this unknown civilization was that of the woodland, lakes, and forest environment.
Julsrud tried to gain the attention of the scientific community but was met with indifference and academic silence. Since archaeologists, paleontologists, historians, and anthropologists chose to ignore him, Julsrud proceeded to publish his own book in Spanish Enigmas Del Pasado. Waldemar in print theorized that the colossal collection of ceramic and stone artifacts had been buried by a people who experienced catastrophes. He conjectured that there had been period of catastrophes that had changed the face of the earth and that there must have been ancient civilizations wiped out by the catastrophes. His most radical suggestion that clashed violently with scientists was that man had existed contemporaneously with the dinosaurs.
Although there was sound evidence that Julsrud was on to something of major scientific importance, he was ridiculed by the authorities when his book was published.
Was there a precursor civilization at Acambaro during
the Ice Age as geologists reckon time? In the collection are unmistakable
representations of the one humped American camel of the Ice Age, Ice Age
horses, as well as of animals resembling rhinoceroses of extinct species. There
are many figurines of giant monkeys such as actually existed in
During excavations among the figurines were found some
teeth. These teeth were taken to Dr. George Gaylord Simpson in 1955, at that
time
In 1947, upon the publication of Julsrud's book, a few
newspapers and magazines in
Finally in 1950 an American newspaperman, Lowel
Harmer, ventured to Acambaro to inspect the collection. Harmer went to the site
of
The establishment scientists continued to act as if nothing of significance had happened in Acambaro that would threaten the evolutionary paradigm. Despite their efforts to downplay or explain away Julsrud's discoveries as that of an eccentric kook, the information was slowly leaking out to a wide audience that would take the Julsrud collection seriously and consider it a legitimate find.
William W. Russell, a
The discoveries were now too far disseminated into the literature of the general public for scientists to intellectually suppress them with the cloak of academic silence. The professional archaeologists would have to deal with the irritating problem in Acambaro.
In 1952 Charles C. Dipeso of the Amerind Foundation felt the popular accounts circulating in the newspapers and magazines (such as Fate 3) prevailed upon him to begin an examination of the strange collection. Samples were sent and laboratory tests of them proved nothing." Dipeso thought the tests would dismiss the collection as a hoax because they would demonstrate them to be of modern manufacture.
The figurines could not be falsified merely because of
the life forms representing Mesozoic reptiles. Dipeso in June of 1952 arrived
in Acambaro to examine the collection owned by Juisrud. Taking no more than
four hours he claimed to have viewed 32,000 items in the mansion. In fact, he
asserted his examination was very precise and thorough to the extent that he
detected the figurines depressions forming eyes, mouth, scales to be sharp and
new. No dirt was packed in any of the crevices. 4
Dipeso must have been the bionic archaeologist, handling objects at speeds that exceed those of superman's. To have achieved this Herculean feat he would have to inspect 133 artifacts per minute steadily. In reality, it would take several days to unpack the massive jumble of intact, broken, and repaired pieces from the boxes. Once the boxed pieces were disentangled and set up with those already on display in the mansion, it would take many more days to even give a cursory examination.
Charles Dipeso said that further investigation revealed that a family living in the Acambaro area made the figurines during "the winter months while their fields lie idle." Dipeso believed his family of hoaxers got their ideas from the local cinema, comic books, newspapers or books from the local library.
It appears that even Dipeso did not truly believe the
Julsrud collection was a fake. Before he returned to
In the first place, it was against the archaeological code of ethics and illegal for Dipeso to be acquiring Indian artifacts to take out of the country. Secondly, the black market antiquity dealer who sold Dipeso the artifacts had obvious motivation to make sure that Dipeso didn't buy from Julsrud, so we have no difficulty understanding why the dealer made up the story of the hoaxer family.
Francisco Aguitar Sanchaz, Superintendent of the
National Irrigation Plant of Solis said, "That on the basis of four years
intimate knowledge of the inhabitants of the entire area and of archaeological
activity there, he could positively deny that there was any such ceramic
production in the vicinity." The Municipal President of Acambaro, Juan
Terrazaz Carranza, issued on
'This Presidency under my direction ordered that an investigation be carried out in this matter, and has arrived at the conclusion that in this municipal area there does not exist any persons who makes these kinds of objects."
There are many other problems associated with Dipeso's spurious allegations. He fails to mention that the ceramic artifacts of varying clay composition and styles had been individually and not mold-made. There were not only ceramic pieces but also stone pieces.
The ceramic collection has unsurpassed variety and beauty that has won the admiration of professional artists. No peasant family could possibly make thousands and thousands of non-duplicated sculptures with such skill and artistic finesse.
The famous Earle Stanley Gardner, whose detective
mysteries became the basis for the famous Perry Mason television programs, was
a forensic pathologist and attorney who served as district attorney for the
city of
"Every criminal, every criminal gang has its own method of operations. Police can often identify a criminal or gang from the method of a crime. It is obvious that no one individual or group could have made the pieces."
Charles Dipeso insisted in his insinuations that the
collection was an elaborate hoax; the diggers making pits, burying the objects,
and later digging them up. Dipeso finished his 1953 report with resounding
confidence, "Our investigation proved conclusively that the figurines are
not prehistoric and were not made by a superior prehistoric race that
associated with dinosaurs."5
Much of Dipeso's report was absolutely unfounded or mere conjecture. What would be the motive for faking the objects? Economically, at 12 cents a figure, for a hoaxer to manufacture the objects, to say nothing of the additional costs to bury them and then dig them up again, Tinajero, a poor Mexican farmer, could never have afforded to make 33,500 figures under these circumstances.
The collection is not only skillfully made but contains dinosaur species that only a highly educated person who had burrowed deep into the recesses of paleontological literature could have known of the rare life forms. Odilon Tinajero had neither the artistic competence or educational background to perpetuate such a hoax. Tinajero left school in the fourth grade and could barely read or write.
Acambaro is a dry, arid, and relatively treeless area, yet all the ceramic objects had been baked in open fires. This would require many truckloads of firewood which is very expensive in Acambaro. It would have been consumed consistently. The smoke rising from the fire could not have possibly gone undetected by the entire community.
Professor Ramon Rivera of
Rivera filed this report,
"The truth is that there is not the most remote
idea suspicion of there having lived in Acambaro, or near or far from here, anyone
who made in quantity or little by little such pieces. This fact has been
investigated by all possible means, covering the time from more than a century
ago up to now. There are old people living here who can still give details
otherwise unrecorded from the date of the independence of this country."
Another consideration that is often ignored in the debate over the authenticity of the artifacts is that many of them are made of hard stones and not of ceramic. These stone objects show all the effects of erosion and the stone objects are of the same style as the ceramics and the erosion factor is almost impossible to fake.
In 1954, the storm of controversy surrounding the Julsrud collection reached such a crescendo of interest that official archaeologists of the Mexican Government decided to investigate. Dr Eduardo Noquera, director of Pre-Hispanic Monuments of the Instituto Nacional de Antropologiae Historia, was the lead investigator. Dr. Noguera was accompanied by Rafael Orellana, Ponciano Salazar, and Antonio Pompa y Pompa of the Instituto Nacional de Antropologiciae Historia, upon arrival they inspected the collection and proceeded to El Toro Hill to select undisturbed sites for excavation.
Dr. Noguera supervised the dig at a site that he and the other prominent Mexican archaeologists selected. After several hours of digging many figures were discovered. The archeologists declared that the pieces gave every sign of antiquity and of having been buried a long time ago. The figurines were dug up in the presence of a number of witnesses which included people from the local schools and members of the Chamber of Commerce. Immediately the archeologists congratulated Juisrud on his remarkable discoveries. Two of the archeologists promised to write about the discovery in a scientific journal.
Noquera realized that the dinosaur figurines posed a problem that could ruin his professional career. The archeologists simply faced a dilemma to either tell the truth, that regardless of what anybody may think they had chosen a site and dug up dinosaur figures or to hide the truth in some alternative explanation.
Noquera went back to
"Actually in spite of the apparent scientific
legality with which these objects were found, it is a case of reproduction and
to say falsification, made in a relatively recent epochs. In my opinion it is
composed of three types of objects one of them figurines which pretend to be
time reproductions of animals extinct for millions of years; possibly the maker
of these objects was inspired by some books on paleontology which were in vogue
at the end of the past century or the beginning of the present one."
Julsrud was gravely disappointed that in a span of a few weeks, the archaeologists first vindicated the collection and then cleverly maneuvered to deny their own discoveries. Juisrud, undaunted by all the academic goofy dust sprinkled over the collection by rigid orthodox scientist's to make it go away, pressed on in his efforts to convince the skeptics.
Eventually, an eminent scholar arrived on the scene in Acambaro who would expose the contentions of Julsrud's opponents with a series of arguments and facts that would prove to be indisputable. In the summer of 1955 Charles Hapgood, the Professor of History and Anthropology at Keene State College of the University of New Hampshire, spent several months in Acambaro and conducted a very detailed investigation of the collection. Charles Hapgood had already distinguished himself as the author of a number of books including "Earth's Shifting Crust" (1958), "Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings" (1966), and "The Path of the Pole" (1970).
Hapgood excavated a number of sites that were on
previously undisturbed ground and found many pieces of ceramic figurines of the
"Julsrud" type. To eliminate any possibility of fraud that Tinajero
or anyone else had manufactured the ceramics, Hapgood decided to excavate
beneath a house that had been built in 1930, long before any artifacts were
found on El Toro Hill. They found a house directly over the site owned by the
chief of police, asked permission to dig beneath the floor of his house.
Permission was granted, and they dug a six-foot deep pit beneath the hard
concrete floor of the living room, unearthing dozens of the controversial
objects. Since the house had been built twenty five
years before Julsrud arrived in
In 1968 Charles Hapgood returned to Acambaro accompanied by Earle Stanley Gardner of Perry Mason fame. Mr. Gardner was not only trained in criminology but was also an investigator of archaeological problems. He was supremely impressed with the vastness and the variety of the collection. It was quite clear that Mr. Gardner considered the fake theory completely false, outrageous and deceptive!
The radiocarbon 14 method of dating was still in its
infancy, but Hapgood acquired specimens for C14 testing.6
Hapgood submitted the samples
to the Laboratory of Isotopes Inc. in
|
Sample No. 1 |
(I-3842) 3590 + - 100 (C.1640 BC) |
|
Sample No. 2 |
(I-4015) 6480 + - 170 (C. 4530 BC) |
|
Sample No. 3 |
(I-4031)3060 + - 120 (C. 1110 BC) |
The radiocarbon dates of up to 4,500 B.C for Carbon on
the ceramics would make the collection the oldest in the
In 1972, Arthur Young submitted two of the figurines
to Dr. Froelich Rainey, the director of the
"...Now after we have had years of
experimentation both here and at the lab at
But when the lab at the
A thermoluminescent technician admitted that no other ceramics existed, in his experience, that produced regenerated light signals, and no other thermoluminescent dating of ceramics had ever been done by utilization of a regenerated light signal. In short, the testing was a hocus pocus, laboratory trick to avoid the obvious conclusion that dinosaurs and man lived together.
John Tierney determined to expose the
John Tierney took a half dozen samples of Julsrud
ceramics of different clay composition to a team at
In 1997 B.C Video released the program Jurassic Art with the Acambaro segment which was originally supposed to have been a part of NBC's television special, "The Mysterious Origins of Man." The program features Neil Steede, President of the Early Sites Research Society West and Mexican Epigraphic Society, attempting to debunk the collection, claiming it is of recent manufacture. Toward the end of the program, it is revealed that he sent two samples from the Juisrud type ceramics (one of a human figure and the other a dinosaur figure) to an independent C14 laboratory. Startling results came back. The human figure was dated at 4,000 years BP (Before Present) and the dinosaur figure at 1,500 years BP. Steede tap danced around implications, embarrassingly embracing the human figurine as credible, while waltzing past the dinosaur figurine, claiming the laboratory test must not have given a true reading. In reality, the dinosaur figurine created too much tension for orthodox science and Steede had to find an out. The solution was simple. He discarded the dinosaur date.
The Japanese company, Nissi, sponsored a television
crew to go to Acambaro and produce a program for Japanese T.V regarding the
Acambaro figurines. The program entitled "Did the Ancients See
Dinosaurs" was aired on
Footnotes
1. Charles Hapgood, MYSTERY IN
ACARNBARO, An Account of the Ceramic Collection of the Late Waldemar Juisrud in
Acumbaro, GTU,
2.
3. William N. Russell "Did Man Tame the Dinosaurs?" Fate, (March, 1952), pp 20-27; "Report on Acambaro," Fate. (June, 1953), pp.31-35.
4. Charles C. Dipeso,
"The Clay Figurines of Acambaro,"
5. Charles Dipeso, "The Clay Monsters of Acambaro," Archaeology (Summer, 1953), Pages 111-114.
6. Taylor and Berger, American Antiquity (Vol.33, No.3), 1968.
7. John H Tiemey, "Pseudoscientific Attacks On Acambaro Artifacts: The Ceramic Technology of Intellectual Suppression," World Explorer Magazine (Vol.1 #4), pp52-61.
Preliminary Report From Second Expedition
by Dr. Dennis Swift
The claim has been made that only Waldamar
Julsrud's excavations ever produced the distinctive ceramic objects that make
up this collection. Why haven't other excavations found Julsrud type ceramics
and dinosaur figurines? In August of 1999, Dr. Dennis Swift and Dr. Don Patton
ventured back to Acambaro to seek answers to such questions. By chance while
having dinner at a local Acambaro restaurant we met Ernesto Narrvete Marines.
In the 1970's Ernesto was commander of the Federal Police for the
When Ernesto apprehended Jaime Aquirre and Raul Hernandez on Chivo Countain had in their possession 3,300 Julsrud type pottery figurines. The commander catalogued the collection as evidence and told us that he personally observed nine dinosaur figurines. Ernesto drew a sketch for us of the dinosaurs he had seen in the collection. These illegally excavated artifacts were handed over to Dr. Luis Moto, Mayor of Acambaro in 1978-1979, and kept in City Hall.
The artifacts were accepted as genuine by the
Federal Court of Mexico when they were used as prima facie evidence in the
trial of Jaime Aquirre and Raul Hernandez. Jaime and Raul were sentenced to the
Federal prison in
While in Acambaro the authors were introduced
to Dr. J. Antonio Villia Hennejon who has a medical practice in
Dr. Herrejon insisted that the ground he dug
in was hard packed with no loose soil. This was confirmed in personal
conservation with other participants in such excavations who remain in
Acambaro; i.e. Porfirio Martinez Espinoseo, who accompanied us to Goat mountain
and showed us where in his youth he had excavated hundreds of ceramic
artifacts. Twice Dr. Herrejon accompanied Julsrud on burros to an area below
Antonio Herrejon recalled that in the 1940's
and early 1950's virtually nothing was known about dinosaurs in
The figurines he saw in the late 1940's and early 1950's were simply curious looking creatures that many years later were correctly identified as particular dinosaur species. Dr. Herrejon said that even most of the Brontosaurs looking dinosaurs did not look like a "typical" saurian dinosaur. We pressed him as to what he meant by "typical?" He replied, "they had spines all down their backs, little spines." We drew dinosaurs with conical dermal spines and Antonio pointed vigorously stating in Spanish, "That's it, That's it".
Dr. Herrejon unwittingly had helped to verify the authenticity of the Julsrud dinosaur figurines. No one knew in the 1940s, 50's, that some species of Saurian dinosaurs had dermal spines. They were perceived as represented on the Sinclair gasoline filling station signs. It was the work of Stephen Czerkas in a 1992 article that brought to light this aspect of dinosaur anatomy (Geology, V.20, No.12, 1992, p.1068-1070).
Dr. Herrejon was intimately aware of the details and of the immensity of the Julsrud collection (33,700 ceramic pieces). He said it was simply astonishing that not one piece was a duplicate of another. They were all individually distinct. Others who closely examined the collection have also observed this fact. Antonio commented, "If there was a fabrication who was its artist?" No single artist could make 33,700 figurines, all different in style. If there was a hoax then there must have been many artists. How could such a conspiracy be kept silent all these years? Surely someone would have known about such activities.
Dr. Swift inquired of Dr. Herrejon as to the condition of the artifacts when they were excavated. Antonio said that they were encrusted with dirt and other materials (patina). During Easter week of 1951 Antonio spent two days with Julsrud cleaning the dirt and patina off recently excavated ceramic pieces.
Herrejon and Julsrud did not realize that the absence of patina on the objects would later erupt into accusations that they could not be old or authentic. Julsrud ignorantly commenced the cleaning of all the artifacts back in the 1940's. The job was completed by Tinejero and his helpers.
However, there are many eyewitnesses who saw Julsrud's excavating of the ceramic pieces and confirm that the artifacts had patina and dirt on them.
In the process of handling of several hundred pieces of the Julsrud collection, the authors have observed pieces that still have dirt embedded in the crevices as well as some patina on the surface.
FIGURINE WEBSITE and PHOTO GALLERY: http://www.bible.ca/tracks/tracks-acambaro.htm
People have lots of questions about dinosaurs. They are interesting creatures to say the least!
Did they really live millions of years ago? Did they evolve? What happened to them? Why are there so many dinosaur fossils found?
Did dinosaurs ever live on earth with man? Are there any living dinosaurs today? Does the Bible have anything to say about dinosaurs?
There is no doubt that millions of dinosaurs once roamed Earth. Fossils have been found all over the world and the bones of some of them are on display in the museums. Scientists have reconstructed the ancient creatures and we think we have a pretty good idea what they looked like.
If you try finding the word “dinosaur” in ancient literature or the Bible, I can save you time. The word is simply not found. But then the word dinosaur didn’t come into existence until 1841 when Sir Richard Own coined the name which means “terrible lizard.”
The finding of fossil bones began over a hundred years ago in 1822 when an English doctor by the name of Gideon Mantell found some strange teeth fossilized in a rock. Actually, Dr. Mantell’s wife found the first tooth and they began a life-long investigation that led them to more bones in a gravel quarry.
Mantell was convinced that the tooth his wife had found looked identical to an iguana – only about twenty times larger. Dr. Mantell finally named the creature that had owned that tooth Iguanodon which means “iguana-like tooth!
WHAT CAUSED THE DINOSAURS TO BECOME FOSSILIZED?
If an animal dies today it begins to degenerate pretty fast because of heat, humidity, scavengers and of course oxygen. Bugs, worms and bacteria also go to work on the decaying animal and it doesn’t take it very long to go from road kill to rot!
If the dinosaurs had simply died of old age or in a battle with another dinosaur, they would have quickly decayed and we would have no record of them today. Something traumatic had to occur to cover the fossilized animals with mud in order to begin the process of fossilization. I like the term “mud flood.
Despite
what many of us have been told, the making of fossils can be a very short
process (not thousands or even millions of years). There have been
fossils found in the mud floods that ruined
In fact, a miner’s hat has been found that had been completely fossilized or turned into a rocky mineral. An old western boot has also been found with a fossilized bone still in it . . . and we know that that cowboy didn’t live millions of years ago!
The
fact that great fossil beds have been found with thousands of animals all piled
up and jumbled together. These huge piles of ancient animals and
dinosaurs must have died and been buried very quickly. These fossil beds
are found all over the world and are evidence that the world was once covered
by a huge flood. One of the fossil beds in found in
Florissant
Fossil Beds, also in
DO WE READ ABOUT DINOSAURS IN THE BIBLE?
We don’t find the word “dinosaur” in the Bible of course, because the word dinosaur was not even thought of then. But there are a number of places where the word “dragon” occurs in the Scriptures. Actually, the same Hebrews word for “dragon” is used in some passages to speak of monsters, serpents, and even sea monsters!
The most interesting passages in the Bible that refers to a huge monster type of creature is found in Job chapters 40 and 41.
BEHEMOTH
In Job 40:15-24 we read about a creature called “behemoth.” We can learn some interesting things about this ancient creature:
1. Behemoth ate grass like an ox. (verse 15)
2. Behemoth had great strength in his loins or back legs and in the muscles of his belly. (verse 16)
3. Behemoth moved his huge tail which is described like a cedar tree! (verse 17) Can you find an animal today that has a tail as large as a cedar tree?
Some commentators say that behemoth was actually a hippopotamus or an elephant. Have you ever seen a hippo or elephant with a tail as big as a cedar tree?
4. Behemoth had bones that were as strong as iron. (verse 18)
5. Behemoth was the largest and strongest of all the animals. (verse 19)
6. Behemoth found refuge in the shady trees and willows that grew in the water. He must not have liked living out in the open. (verses 21-22)
7. Behemoth drank so much water that the scripture says “he drinks up a river.” (verse 23)
8. Behemoth could not be captured by the snares of men. (verse 24)
That must have been some creature! Wouldn’t you love to see behemoth? It’s description is kind of like the brontosaurus or maybe the brachiosaurus.
LEVIATHAN
Job chapter 31 tells us about another fascinating creature called leviathan. You can read about leviathan in Job 41:1-5, Psalm 74:14, and Psalm 104:26.
Let’s see what we can find about this incredible creature:
1. God asked Job, do you think you can catch leviathan with a fish hook? (verse1)
2. Mockingly, God asked Job if he thought he could put a ring in his nose and tame him! (verse 2)
3. God again asked Job – do you think leviathan would beg for mercy and speak softly to mere man? Or does man think he can make a beast of burden out of him like he does other animals? (verses 3 and 4)
4. God asks Job if he thinks he can make a pet out of leviathan or catch him and eat him at a banquet. (verses 5 and 6)
5. Leviathan is so fierce that no man wants to rile him up because no man can stand up to this mighty creature. (verse 10)
6. Leviathan has huge and terrible teeth and his mouth is like a large door. (verse 14)
7. Leviathan even has scales for protection. (verse 15)
8. When leviathan sneezes, he send forth a light. His eyes glow and out of his mouth fly sparks of fire. Smoke comes out of his nostrils and a flame comes out of his mouth! (verses 18-21) This sounds like some kind of fire breathing dragon!
9. Leviathan has a long and strong neck. When leviathan raises himself up, even the bravest of men shake in fear! (verses 22-25)
10. Leviathan cannot be killed with mere swords and spears. He can break iron like a piece of straw and bronze is like rotten wood to him. (verses 26-27)
11. Arrows cannot drive him away. He has no fear of man and he can stir up the deep waters like a boiling pot. (verses 28-34)
12. Leviathan even plays with the mighty ship that sail the ocean. (Psalm 10426)
Leviathan must have been some sea monster!
And this is all recorded in the Bible and these creatures lived on earth with man!
Click Here To Continue: Sailors have reported seeing these huge creatures and sea monsters! (Coming soon!)